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December 13, 2013

Maybe you have heard the song with the line "you only get what you give". That line in that song hits me when I need it most and reminds me of how fortune I am to be living the life I'm living.

In October, while dealing with a life altering choice ahead of me, I took the advise of a friend Gary Michels and registered for ChoiceCenter University's 100 day leadership challenge.

The leadership program had me check in with my true north. It had me look at what MY life was being given for, and had me inquire into if I was really aligned with that.

From a business perspective, I got in touch with how off track and disconnected I was from my purpose, my talents and my vision for the future of Recruiting and Career Management.

From a personal perspective I learned that my cell phone is a distraction to initiating new relationships, strengthen existing ones and is also a barrier to my situational and human awareness.

Since I began my 100 day leadership training I have become re-engaged with why I moved to Northern California in the first place and I have plowed the ground and the scoped the universe for ideas and people who are aligned with my values, attitudes and beliefs.

Lastly, the 100 day leadership challenge is re-teaching me that giving is the way.....in the world of abundance. I now know that if I died today my biggest regret would not have been changing the way the world hires and gets hired, it would be putting too much stock in my "job" and not enough stock in giving back and serving others. Through me being aligned with my compass, and honoring my values only then will my dreams will come true.

Going forward I am choosing to invest my talents & time making the world a better place, as well as working and playing with people who choose to do the same.

Right now my leadership team is fun draising for an important cause, our team goal is to raise $75,000.00 for Nevada's Easter Seals by Tuesday December 17, 2013. Nevada was hit hard by the economic trouble the last few years and Easter Seals supports low income families living with disabilities.

My personal goal is to raise $2500.00, I have $1900.00 to go!

100% of your donation will go directly to the cause. No commissions are earned by me, or by Choice.

September 10, 2013

The basics
are handled, your to do lists are checked off and you are poised to start
growing.

1. Market
Need - check

2.
Business Plan - check

3. Product
Ideation and Development - check

4. New
Accounts Generating Revenue - check

5. Funding
– check

6. Hiring
– uncheck.

Most
start-ups are created out of a founder’s passion and vision for how the world
could be with their product or service in use everywhere. An inspired founder typically attracts friends,
colleagues and family members to their team;

however once the referral well runs
dry the highly qualified and compatible people are much harder to find, close
and keep.

Make no bones about
it, hiring is risky business.

It is
important to consider that a bad hire can cost your company a minimum of
$50,000, in some cases the wrong person in the wrong job can cost you your
start up.

So how does a Start
Up build a robust Talent Acquisition Engine and Quality Hiring process?

Establishing Culture - It starts
with the CEO & Leadership team codifying and articulating the purpose,
direction and core values of the company.
Creating a unified mission driven culture happens when each and every
employee embodies the core values and operates congruently with those values.

Operating Plan – next the team
needs to map out the avenues and milestones needed to scale the company and
accomplish success. Once the plan is
established it is time to identify who will do what, and by when it needs to be
done.

Staffing Plan –effectively staffing
your company begins with conducting an inventory of who is currently on the
team. It is important to know who has what skills, abilities, competencies and
strengths. It is equally important to be aware of which skills and competencies
are missing and required for the plan to be executed and milestones to be
achieved.

Defining Performance Based Job
Descriptions – the lifeline to performance management hinges on defining the
role up front (before you hire) as well as what you expect the role to achieve
in terms of hard metrics. Establish Key
Performance Indicators for every role in the company.

Creating Selection Criteria for
Hiring – Move away from what the resume needs to say. Once you define your KPIs then dig a little
deeper and identify what core traits, competencies, attitudes, motivators and
behaviors are required to perform the role at optimal performance.

Once you define the required skills and abilities, then it
is time to think about what the right candidate will have done in the past and
for which type of companies.

Filling the Candidate Pipeline –
Brand Your Company and Brand the Role.
Unless your Start Up is named Facebook, Google or Apple, you will need
to position your opportunity as the “place” to learn, grow and move a career
forward. Great candidates want great
opportunities and everyone is knocking on their door, what will make them
answer your knock?

Sourcing – Open the Top of the
Funnel. We are facing unprecedented talent shortages; smart hiring managers
will look outside of their gut instinct paradigm for where the ideal candidate is right now. If someone that has
worked in a completely different industry yet they have the right behaviors,
traits, values and competencies and they can do this job and do it well, then why not consider them?

Screening and Evaluating – Filter
the right candidates in. Earlier you
established what right looked like, now you need to take that criteria and follow
a vetted screening and sorting process that takes the wide funnel of candidates
your cool brand attracted and sorts through them to identify the best and
eliminate the rest. You can use an on
line video interviewing tool, an high quality assessment, a prescreen
questionnaire or a multitude of other evaluation tools to sort the players from
the posers.

Leading The Job Interview – Since
you created your hiring criteria before you began sourcing candidates you are
aware of what is important to you and what you need to interview for. Preparing
an interview model (with answers) before the candidate enters your office sets
you up to win and be objective in the interviewing process

Conducting
References and Background validation – even if you are in love, check this
person out. People are on their best
behavior on an interview; contact old bosses, co-workers, conduct a background
check, check out their digital identity – find out who they really are
before making a job offer.

On
Boarding – Lastly once you make a hire, you most likely have spent 25-30 hours
on this project, valuable hours that you will never get back. Now it is time to nurture and feed your
investment. Find out what is important to your new hire. Ask how they like to
be managed. Inquire in to to their
career path & learning requirements. If they are a great hire, then your
competition will agree with you. It is important that you make this new member
of your company family feel welcome, appreciated and fully utilized as soon as
possible.

September 9, 2013

Career Coach and Author Ford R. Myers Highlights 10 Little-known but Deadly Mistakes That Can Stop a Job Search Dead in its Tracks!

Haverford, PA (September 9, 2013) - Many people make significant job search mistakes and never even realize it. These blunders are easy to make ... and they can end up costing you thousands of dollars.

Ford R. Myers, Career Coach, Speaker and Author of "Get The Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring," (John Wiley & Sons, http://www.getthejobbook.com) reveals these top 10 mistakes, and explains how to avoid them.

Mistake #1: Relying on Online Job Postings
In general, job postings and "want ads" produce little value. However, it is also a mistake to ignore them altogether. Some of the best chances for jobs from ads are in specialty trade publications and web sites of specific industries. Myers suggests spending no more than five percent of your valuable time on public job postings.

Mistake #3: Looking Only for Job Openings
Searching for companies with "openings" is an obsolete job hunting method. The best jobs are never "vacancies" or "openings." Rather, more than 40% of positions are created for the applicant, often at the interview. The key is to shift your focus from "openings" to "opportunities" (which exist nearly everywhere).

Mistake #4: Ineffective Networking
Networking should be the primary focus of every job search. However, Myers finds that most people go about it the wrong way - by talking too much and asking for jobs. The best networkers are listeners rather than talkers, have a clear agenda, and are not shy about asking for feedback and guidance. Remember that networking is more about giving than it is about taking.

Mistake #5: Leaving Yourself Open to Many Kinds of Jobs
Focus on finding the RIGHT job - not "just any job." Critical factors to consider include scope of responsibilities, satisfaction, growth potential, location, cultural fit, great co-workers, a pleasing environment and competitive compensation. Commit to your job-search goal, and don't try to be "all things to all people."

Mistake #6: Being Unplanned in Your Search
Myers suggests the following tips to conduct a proper job search: a well thought-out methodology, daily solitude and planning, space in the home dedicated to the search, and a system for accountability. Most of all, be 100% clear about your job search objective - and follow a structured plan to achieve it.

Mistake #7: Doing it Alone
Career coaches are experts who provide objective guidance, help you "think outside the box," and provide a proven system for job search success. Many offer excellent advice on salary negotiation - often exceeding the job seeker's expectations. The job market is just too tough to think that you can achieve optimal results by yourself.

Mistake #8: Letting Others Control Your Job Search
Of course, it is best to conduct your own research and target the right companies yourself. Remember: only you can "sell yourself" effectively and land a job. However, Myers suggests working with a small selection of professional recruiters - they can serve an important role in your search. But you'll need to maintain control over the whole process.

Mistake #9: Not Preparing Well Enough for Job Interviews
When you boil it down, all job interviews are comprised of five basic elements: articulating your value, conveying your knowledge of the company, asking intelligent questions, negotiating compensation, and following-up. Each of these items has to be practiced in advance so you can "ace" the job interview. "Winging it" just won't do!

Mistake #10: Not Knowing Your Market Value
You must research and assess your value in the marketplace before you attend a single interview. Never disclose your salary requirements - always get the employer to name the salary or range first. The time to talk money is when the employer has made it clear that you are their top candidate, and after they extend an offer.

"It is very easy for even the savviest of job seekers to make these mistakes. By learning how to navigate these potential pitfalls from the outset, your job search will be more productive and yield more positive results," adds Myers.

For more information and other useful tips for achieving career success, visit http://www.getthejobbook.com .

Copyright (C) 2013, Career Potential, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Permission to Reprint: This article may be reprinted, provided it includes the following attribution: Reprinted by permission of Ford R. Myers, a nationally-known Career Coach and author of "Get The Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring." Download your free bonuses now at http://www.careerbookbonuses.com.

ABOUT: Ford R. Myers is President of Career Potential, LLC. His firm helps clients take charge of their careers, create the work they love, and earn what they deserve! Ford has held senior consulting positions at three of the nation's largest career service firms. His articles and interviews have appeared in many national magazines and newspapers, and he has conducted presentations at numerous companies, associations and universities. In addition, Ford has been a frequent guest on television and radio programs across the country. He is author of Get The Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring. More information is available at: http://www.getthejobbook.com and http://www.careerpotential.com.

AVAILABILITY: Greater Philadelphia Area; nationwide by arrangement via telephone. Available for interviews in print, television and radio.

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September 4, 2013

We’ve
all been there, sitting in the waiting room, palms sweating trying to memorize
the “right answers” while we are desperately scanning our resume, looking for the right thing to say (like we don’t
know where we have worked and what we have done).

Interviews
can be just as terrifying as public speaking, except you don’t know what’s
coming! You want to be prepared, but so does the interviewer. They want
to get to know you and figure out if you’re the right person for this role and
their company. And in reality you want that too. The absolute worst is being in
the wrong company, working for the wrong manager doing a job that is not a full
self-expression of your talent and abilities.

This
is why most companies have added behavioral interviewing to their hiring
process. I recommend next time you are
invited to a behavioral interview; to be excited about the opportunity to
participate. As companies who make the shift to behavioral interviewing enable you to
join them in a well thought out, through review of your skills, experience,
work styles, behaviors and values. If
they still hire you after that, then you most likely are the right person for
the job.

So,
now you are probably wondering how do you prepare for a behavioral interview?

In my
opinion the best way to prepare for one of these interviews is to take the time
to gain clarity on what you want to do, for whom you want to do it (type of
company and type of manager) and for how long you want to do it.

Behavioral
interviewing is a deep dive in to who you really are underneath the
resume/digital identity, so for you to excel at it, it makes good sense to
create an opportunity check list of what is important to you in a role, a
company and in a boss and what you have to offer, what your accomplishments are
and where you want to go.

In
some circles they call this a Career Strategic Attraction Plan. Here is a
sample from my life.

What I want and need in a job:

to
work for a mission driven company

to
work for a company that demonstrates good ethics

to
work for a company that makes the world a better place

What I want and need in a boss:

to
report to a boss who has decent people management skills

to
report to a boss who takes time to learn about their employee’s goals and
career ideals

to
work for a person who is a good coach and mentor and takes time to bring out
the best in his/her people

to
work for a focused, driven ambitious boss who is clear about the path to
success

What I want and need in my work:

to influence
people

to create
new solutions to old problems

to interaction
with the public

to
utilize my strategic thinking

to
travel and step in to new situations and solve problems

earn
solid and reliable payment for my contribution

What I bring to the table:

I am
smart

I am
charming

I am
a hard worker

I am
funny

I am
creative

I am
highly effective at attracting and retaining talent

I am
highly effective at attracting and retaining customers

I
have a wealth of experience in Talent Acquisition, Talent Management,
Organizational Development, Strategy, and Management.

My Accomplishments:Built a long term, highly successful career in Recruiting

Built
and deployed a Behavioral interviewing software for over 100 companies

Invented,
designed and effectively deployed Conscious Hiring, a Quality of Hire process
for over 50 companies before choosing to automate it.

Supported
a family of 5 for over 10 years

My Career Goals:

Work
with Managers and Executives on taking themselves to the next level

Be in
an Executive role with a fast growing, operationally sound company.

Work as an integral member of a team committed to making the world a better place.

What is required of me to land and
succeed in this career?

Target
like-minded companies

Ensure
my resume / bio is a clear reflection of who I am, list my high impact
accomplishments

Research
the company, the Executive, the hiring manager before I apply

Apply
directly to the Hiring Manager (make a phone call or Link In)

Bring
my best self to work

Produce
high quality work product

In
this simple list I have identified several values and behaviors that I have, and
that I am looking for in any company that I work with or for. You may also
notice that I also list what I need to do to land that job, and who I need to
be once I get it. It is important to be
responsible for your cause in the matter of how you get that great job
opportunity and how you keep it.

If
you are honest with yourself about who you are, what you want and need, what
you can give and where you want to go, and it all makes good logic sense, no
matter what the hiring process you will pass it with flying colors. Any
well-implemented behavioral interview ought to be a breeze as behavioral
interviewing is intended not to hurt your chances but to help the company in
selecting the right fit.

Lastly
if this inventory list is difficult for you and you just aren’t sure what is
what with your talents, traits, behaviors, values seek a career coach as soon
as possible. There are also many excellent career assessments on the market
that can help you identify your gifts and attributes and where they apply.

August 30, 2013

One of the sole competitive advantages your business has is the
people you hire to carry out your mission. Running a company effectively now
and in the future is directly related to your ability to choose the right
people for the right roles and retain them for the right period of time. Your
ability to stay in the marketplace and stay on top hinges on how well you maximize
the returns on your people investments, leverage the strengths of your
mission-critical players, key contributors and next-level leaders, and have
them stay actively engaged and effective.

Media from the Wall Street Journal to
CNN, and several hundred CEOs with whom I’ve spoken, agree that one of the top
strategic initiatives of many companies is hiring not only new talent, but also
the right talent. It is forecast that by 2015, we will be fully engaged in a
massive shortage of hi tech and leadership talent.

After spending the week rubbing elbows
with some of Silicon Valleys best and brightest it seems to be that this
skilled labor shortage is in full gear right now. A compelling example of this
is yesterday Microsoft reported having 10,000 current job openings in the US
and 50% of those happen to be for technology roles. They have hundreds of
recruiters, contractors and staffing firms trying to help them find people and
the well is coming up dry.

The impetus for this talent “shortage”
is that there will be fewer highly skilled workers available and fewer people interested
in full-time gigs. It is a simple supply-and-demand problem.

The difference between this talent
shortage and the shortage of the late 90's talent is we had more qualified
people in the workforce, technology was certainly not as advanced,
manufacturing was still hiring and we were not yet dealing with the global
competition for these highly qualified people.

Today we are facing an extremely savvy
global talent marketplace, the results of years of a deficient STEM education
system, and technology innovation progressing at unprecedented rates.

In reality, every company I talked to
is hiring technology people right now and everyone is hurting for candidates.
Some companies feel immigration reform could help solve the problem,
other companies are giving up their "stand" for US jobs and hiring
overseas and the impetus is not because it is cheaper, it is because they can
not afford to have these long term vacancies in key contributor tech roles and
continue to flourish.

Of course, the larger organizations can begin to cut through the
problem by deploying talent across the globe where high tech talent is more
readily available yet the SMB simply lacks the infrastructure to pull that off
as a strategy. Many start-ups I spoke
with said they are utilizing companies such as Elance, or Odesk to find
contractor talent while they hunt for full timers.

Almost every company I interviewed talked about a possible solution to this
shortage being a tech job re-training or apprentice program within their companies.

There is one more significant issue
facing US companies in regards to talent and that is the shifting demographics
facing us. We are facing a 50,000,000 deficit of US workers between the ages of
26-46, therefore we need to rely on the newest workforce demographic to fill
these gaps.

Given the shifting demographics facing us,companies committed to
winning the war for talent have to get in to the hearts and minds of the
"new age" employee.

They are tech savvy, they are hard workers, they are smart and can
handle multiple roles at once; however they are not committed to staying where
they are not valued, compensated, rewarded and recognized.

These millennials want to be in charge of their own careers, they
want to know that what ever they are doing today will lead them somewhere
tomorrow, they want to make a difference and they want to matter.

Whether or not you are hiring high tech employees, no one can deny
that the pipelines of highly qualified people with specialized skills offer
slim pickings.

Here Are Some
Quick Fixes:

1. Create Your Employment Brand. Every company serious about
hiring high quality people needs to create an employment brand that has
substance behind it.

2. Adopt a Talent Mindset. Leadership must adopt and train
management to adopt a Talent Mindset, which is in essence that people are the
most important asset in the company. This shift in mindset empowers
business leaders of progressive organizations to maximize the talent of their
people. When they leverage their people’s strengths and fully engage their
work-teams, they capitalize on the brainpower of their workforce while
innovating faster, competing harder and achieving their corporate objectives
sooner.

3. Allow Job Sharing

4. Deploy a System to foster a Productive Remote Workforce

5. Establish Career Pathing for all key roles

6. Pay for Performance / Establish a meritocracy culture

7. Customize Management, Rewards and Work Life to fit the employees’
unique needs.

August 20, 2013

Employment turnover cost the US economy a trillion dollars last year. What is it costing your company? The estimated costs of a poor hire run from three to seven times a person’s salary, especially in sales or management.

With stiff competition, costs rising and margins shrinking, no company can afford $300,000 or more per bad hire.

Your workforce is fuel for the business engine.
Imagine how your business could perform if you were empowered to create the workforce you always wanted—an engaged, inspired team, in which every person is in a job that brings out the best in them.

Comprehensive Posiiton Requirement -

CPR is an innovative and powerful methodology for assessing and analyzing the role you need to fill. Quality hiring hinges on the candidates ability to execute and deliver on key initiatives in a manner that amplifies your company’s brand. We teach you to utilize pertinent data, from existing performers, from the stakeholders and from the outcomes the role is required to produce to lay the foundation for selecting the ideal job candidate.

Let’s face it most, if not all job descriptions are outdated. Performance requirements in the role are often an after thought and not brought up until a person is hired for a job. With CPR the role is the performance. We begin with understanding and articulating the purpose the role exists.

Role analysis is a process that helps you analyze and assess the real needs in the role, department and company. If your company is seeking a highly productive environment, where everyone is committed to the same goals, you must learn to hire right by beginning with the end in mind. When defining the role, you are setting clear expectations of what the position requires and how performance is measured.

August 19, 2013

Regardless of
where you find candidates, it is important to be aware of the power behind a Resume
or these days, the candidates’ Digital Identity.

How can you best
utilize the digital identity and or resume to your advantage?

In the early days of Conscious Hiring we had a Resume Red Flag check list. While many elements of that check list still
matter, the way we interpret those elements needed to shift to reflect the new
world we are living in.

It starts with
creating a match checklist before you begin screening resumes. Help yourself
out by proactively detailing out “what right looks like” so by the time you
have your short list it contains candidates with the right stuff.

Top Line Resume Quick Screening

I teach my new
recruiters to Screen candidates resumes or digital profiles for 8 elements:

The initial
screen is a once over quick screen, and for the experienced eye takes about
45-60 seconds to review. Those resumes or digital identities need to be
categorized into pile 1 & 2. The 1’s
get a more thorough evaluation and the 2’s only get attention if there are not
enough 1’s.

Profiles that do
not make the 1 or 2 pile are not worth spending any time with because they are
littered with typos, have no real information on them, the work history has no
logical progression to it, is or they are so unqualified that it would take an
act of transformation and embellishment to turn them into something appropriate
for the role.

Work History-Dive Resume
Evaluation and Scoring

Whether you are
reviewing a Digital Identity profile like Follr.com or Linked in or you are
reviewing the good old-fashioned resume; it is important to discern a match
score for what the candidate has done and how it compares what you need them to
do.

How long has the
candidate actually been doing a job where they use comparable skills and
competencies required in your job?

Is exact
experience really required or can you train a person who has similar skills
and competencies in another environment?

Breaking it down
further I have the recruiter look at each element of the digital profile /
resume for specific evaluation in each element:

Past Employment (job title,
type of work) – 30 points

Core functions – 20 points

Skills – 20 points

Accomplishments – 20 points

Education – 10 points

Total Possible Work History Score = 100

Once you are
clear what you need and what you want then you can allocate a scoring methodology
that makes sense.

Red flags

As part of your
scoring formula it is important to highlight areas for further questions, if and
when the candidate makes it to phone screen.

Long periods of unemployment
between jobs

Changing careers on an annual
basis for multiple years in a row

Multiple full time employers in
multiple disciplines every year, contracting or free agent is one thing; jumping
in and out of roles multiple times per year however reduce a person’s ability
to become proficient at anything.

The checklist also
needs to include a good amount of detail so that anyone doing the screening
located internally or externally (whether it be San Jose, Salt Lake City or
Bangalore) can screen and score resumes.

August 14, 2013

An effective business strategy needs more than an arbitrary directive from the CEO. Developing and implementing an effective strategy that moves your company objectives forward is required in today’s competitive marketplace. When that strategy breaks down it is typically due to lack of stakeholder buy in or lack of qualifed and capable talent driving the execution.

Great company leaders tell us that gaining key stakeholder alignment while developing their overall organizational is the key to a business strategy that delivers results and sustains the test of time.

All business operates around multiple cylinders that are crucial to bottom-line success.

The congruency and effectiveness of each business unit working
symbiotically with the others directly impacts your company's ability to grow
sales, strengthen customer retention, sustain financial health and optimize the
efforts of your workforce.

One of the ways you can accomplish stakeholder alingment is by bringing your team together for a Business Strategy session.

Through a series of leadership exercises, Socratic
inquiries and facilitated brainstorming you can gain alignment on the current
state (the good, the bad and the ugly) of the business.

Once you do that your team is freed up to begin brainstorming towards the ideal future state of the organization.

With good healthy discussion and some basic ground rules you will stimulate
stakeholder alignment on which objectives and goals are required to bridge the
gap between the two and ultimately, achieve success.

On a deeper level, you can evaluate the current state and the organizational barriers to growth by conducting an Organizational Assessment. Any good assessment begins with data collection. Data collection could be in the form of
assessments, interviews and/or observation; all of these tools help you and your team to better understand the current state of your business as well as help you identify any barriers impeding your organization's success.

Some of the
first areas to analyze include employee & stakeholder alignment, workforce
engagement, the leadership and management teams' strengths, weaknesses and competency gaps, as well as major business process hurdles and roadblocks.

Lastly, it is important to fully understand the team’s aptitude for executing on the critical components of
the business strategy.

Two of the best, most conclusive tools I have used as a prelude to Strategic Planning is the Organizational Health Check and the Innermetrix Leadership Assessment both which provide the reader with a diagnostic of the barriers to company and people performance. Additionally, when interpreted with an eye on the future both of these dynamic tools provide a recipe for building a highly engaged, productive and
effective workforce as well as a healthy, stakeholder centered organization.

Leadership Assessment: As a business executive it is
important that you surround yourself with highly competent, strategically
aligned stakeholders & leaders with the ability and drive to execute
on the business strategy. These days you can buy Executive
Assessment and 360 degree feedback program on every Google page. What I
recommend you look for is a single assessment that measures your leaders
in 78 areas of competency, behaviors, work styles, motivations and
emotional intelligence. When leaders are aware awake to their strengths,
they can consciously work to optimize them. Similarly, when they are
open to learning about their weaknesses they can chose how to mitigate
them and or, if needed fix them.

A holistic approach to understanding your business serves as the
first step in identifying areas that require further investigation and
development. Awareness is the first key to high performance, doing something about it is the second.

August 7, 2013

If people are the fuel for business engine, a high performing
group of people is key for business success. Creating a Talent Strategy that puts people first encourages high performance.

With studies, news anchors and special programming all geared
around the lack of employee engagement savvy business leaders are working
diligently to harness the power of employee engagement and unleash the
potential of their workforce.

Employees who are respected, valued and motivated to perform are
more productive, dedicated and satisfied on the job. While the advantages of
having happy, committed employees are well known; the best way to achieve high
levels of employee satisfaction is still a mystery and challenge for many
hiring managers and business leaders.

It’s a waterfall effect - Employees who feel valued and listened to have higher
levels of commitment; employees with higher levels of commitment typically
reinforce that commitment by being more involved with their jobs and with the
company as a whole; and employees who are more involved are typically the
organization’s top performers. In the last 18 months there have been over 2200 articles, blogs, reports and media interviews directly linking company performance to employee engagement.

Increasing employee commitment starts with learning about how an individual
feels about their job as well as their thoughts on the company, their career
and the relationship between the two. Similarly, encouraging employee
involvement and showing appreciation for it can be highly effective in steeping
employee engagement, strengthening participation, and escalating contribution
in achieving overall business objectives.

As a business leader, hiring manager or even as a member of the Human Resources
department it pays to implement specific steps that help you increase employee
involvement, unleash the spirit and passion of your workforce and ensure your
organization utilizes and retains the right people.

Create a Talent Strategy That Puts People First– Adopt a talent
mindset throughout the organization. Take the stand that people ARE the FUEL
for the business engine, then define and implement a strategy that continues to
perpetuate that belief. It starts with a
hiring process that attracts and selects the right people to move the company
forward, deliver on business initiatives and amplify the company culture. Employee engagement is about giving people
the freedom to have a greater impact on
their own job and have an influence on the overall goals and strategies of the
company. When an individual’s financial and professional success is closely
connected with the company’s success, they have more reason to sink their teeth
into producing win/win outcomes.

Customize
- Rather than have one employee engagement and retention program
that suits all, understand that among your workforce is people and people are
individuals with unique wants and needs.
For one employee, recognition might be the catalyst for job
satisfaction, for another it might be work/life balance and yet for another it
might be earning top compensation and bonuses based on achievement of
goals.

Exploit all 5 Families of Employee Retention – Employee
engagement strategies that include creating a culture where relationships
are initiated, maintained and fostered are paramount. Taking an inventory of the environment
and
making improvements that make your office a place people want to be is key.
Other retention families include support, growth and compensation.

August 6, 2013

Inventor of Conscious Hiring Margo Graziano recognized for her contribution to creating powerful corporate culture by revolutionizing the hiring experience for candidates, hiring managers and companies.

This years National Women's Entrepreneur Award for Industry Innovator is awarded to Margo Graziano for her work in staffing.

Margo is an entrepreneur who built two successful consulting businesses before teaming up on KeenHire, her latest endeavor.

She invented the practice of Conscious Hiring, a process for finding the ideal fit and match of job candidate and job. Conscious Hiring harnesses the power of science, data and real world recruiting expertise to increase the predictability of success for both candidates and hiring managers, while also improving the performance of companies that deploy it.

“In the staffing and recruiting industry there are 10,000 solutions—but nobody’s winning. Not candidates, not hiring managers, and certainly not companies. That’s what I’m here to change. Conscious Hiring is not just a platform, but an entire philosophy about how to hire the right people for the right jobs, for the right reasons,” said Graziano.

Conscious Hiring revolutionizes the hiring experience to give candidates and hiring managers power over the process and the ability to create ideal matches between candidates and positions.

The process starts with breaking down the components of a job and identifying key elements of success for both the role and the person who fills that role. Conscious Hiring matches candidates and roles with scientific precision, resulting in a better, more natural job fit, based upon 204 points of compatibility. Using Conscious Hiring, hiring managers get to see only the best qualified, highest-performing candidates who are most likely to be a great fit for the role.

Companies become more competitive and benefit from Conscious Hiring by getting better performance from employees who are more focused on creating a higher level of value, resulting in decreasing development time and faster time to market.

Margaret Graziano, creator of Conscious Hiring

Conscious Hiring is not just a platform, but an entire philosophy about how to hire the right people for the right jobs, for the right reasons. - Margo Graziano

July 31, 2013

If talent acquisition leaders aren't frightened now, they should be
Without a steady supply of the right talent, organizations will be unable to grow and innovate as they have in the past. The C-Suite is interested in a stable, secure and skilled workforce, not excuses. Meanwhile, the challenges you face on your team and in your organization are growing every day. In the past, strategic but less than urgent improvements could be ignored or put on the back burner while you worked on the task at hand –recruiting exceptional candidates. However, these chinks in your armor will wait no longer. In addition to the growing talent shortages, many recruiting functions are hamstrung by under-performing team structures, failed social media efforts, subjective selection processes, rudimentary workforce planning and, perhaps worst of all, most lack the ability to collect and analyze data that would enable them to improve any of these other areas. Reproduced from - The Global Association for Strategic Talent Management

Never before have US companies had a harder time keeping their employees ALIVE and PRESENT at work. Maybe this FREE Agent mindset people are talking about has some real perks for both sides of the equation.

I have been studying employment and work-place dynamics for over twenty years and one could say that I have seen my fair share of "best places to work" as well as, my fair share of "where is the excape hatch" places to work. If a hire is made and it is not a fit, then it is not a fit. However, if a person really gels with an organization and they leave anyway, it is typically because they outgrew the Manager and or outgrew the job.
The FREE Agent mentality can aid in reducing this unwanted turnover.

Today's talent challenge is deafening many companies ability to compete for the very human resources that they need to move their business forward. The perfect storm has been brewing for almost twenty years and the lightening is paving the way for the supply side, yes CANDIDATES and EMPLOYEES to be in a power position. Astute companies know this and are revamping their Talent Acquisition Strategy to reflect the new workforce dynamics and the many alternatives to "full time" employment that we are all so accustomed to.

The convergence of four generations in the workforce, globalization, the aging population, and the virus called disengagement as well as the mass void of robust & thriving succession plans makes attracting and keeping the right people, even for the best Staffer, one hell of a challenge. Deploying a FREE Agent strategy could open up the talent pipleline and generate a whole new caliber of candidate.

While my grandfather kept the job at the railroad for 15 years, my grand-daughter most likely will have multiple jobs at once and chances are she will work on and off for many companies simultaneously throughout her career.